Therapeutic Writing

As I was growing up and as I set off to college, I used to write/journal a lot. It was my way of letting off steam or just getting something off my chest. I'd write about everything... friends, family, worries, defeats, achievements, happy times, and sad times. No one else ever saw it but me, yet it always made me feel better. And I'd even go back and read it sometime later and realize it was something very petty that was getting to me when I'd vent in my journal. But I even continued to do it for awhile after college as I settled into a life on my own. It was therapeutic for me.

Then two things happened. The first was technology. Exactly what you're reading now... the good ol' Weblog (aka 'blog'). The second was someone finding a random journal entry I had scribbled out about him after an argument (this was way before Eric, if anyone thought otherwise). He got pretty upset and didn't quite understand my venting technique, and it only made it worse when he found out I had done that in the past to get things off my chest. It was my way of getting over things without getting confrontational.

Between these two things, the journalling stopped, and the blogging began. Blogging turned out to be a great way to keep in touch, indirectly, with all of my family that is nowhere near me. They at least could keep up with my life and know I was still alive if we didn't have a chance to talk for awhile. So the blogging started focusing more on my life and what I was up to rather than what you often find in journals - feelings, thoughts about certain subjects that may controversial, etc. It's usually more upbeat stuff, and when I do vent, it takes on a more humorous outlook. It doesn't give me that release I think I need.

Now I'm thinking I may need to start journalling again. There's just so much inside of me that I really don't want to blog about in public, yet, it really needs to get out of my head somehow or, quite frankly, I'm going to be venting, emotional, very non-PC bomb that goes off at the worst possible moment. Not a good thing.

I've just developed (over a long period of time) a bad habit of holding everything in... I started doing that after I had a few overly dramatic temper flare-ups that just didn't do me any good. I took the whole 'bite your toungue' to heart and learned to pick and choose my arguments, which isn't bad... but then it can be if you choose no arguments, especially if it means not standing up for yourself or loved ones. I'd like to think if it was critical, I could and would argue with the best of them... but without my regular 'therapy sessions' to keep things under control in my head, it'd probably come out all irrational. It also gives off a perception that I don't care about certain things, or I'm blowing something off, which is most certainly not true. In fact, the less I have to say about a subject or the quieter I am, that probably means I care more than I'd like to admit... and I'm in the process of bottling it up.

So yeah... maybe it's time to go buy another journal and start letting it all out. If nothing else, I need to make sure this happy front everyone sees on me really isn't just a front... I've always been a happy person, so I'm sure it is real. But it scares me to think that something could just click in my mind and change that, even just for a moment.